Chances are, whatever you’re doing right now has some connection to … the farm bill. Seriously. It’ll cost half a trillion dollars (if Congress ever stops tussling over it). It reaches into every hour of the day. And you’ve never given it a second thought. You meet the farm bill the moment you get up in the morning and step on a scale.

Photograph by Grant Cornett for Bloomberg Businessweek; Illustrations by Jon Burgerman; Data: USDA, Congressional Budget Office